Bliss in Darkness

Reconnaissance

Carrying a sleeping puppy in my arms, and absolutely exhausted from the journey, Twilight and I finally reached our destination. I knew paper was made from trees, but entire libraries too? How does the wood not rot away? There's no way that tree was alive. Oh well, I was now living in this world, and magic existed here. Who's to say trees aren't fine living.

Again, I gave thanks to Twilight as we walked through the library door. Much to my unsurprise, the entire place was lined with books. There were shelves curving and twisting around the entire circumference of the tree. It looked a lot bigger on the inside than it did the outside, but again magic. How was I supposed to doubt anything here?

As soon as I was done marveling at the unique architecture of her home, I followed Twilight through a door in the rear of the room. She opened it with her magic and I nearly collapsed through the door, the bed beckoning me to release the weight from my feet. Setting my new pet down, I jumped up and landed on the bed. I hit it with such force, the entire damn thing collapsed and fell to the ground. I was so shocked I couldn't say a word, and all I could do was lay there in defeat and embarrassment as the small dog yelped several times and coated my face with its tongue.

"Son of a..." I started.

"No worries Charlie. I'm sure that bed isn't anything valuable. I've lived here for years and it has always been here unused. Maybe you have a better excuse to get a bed made that will actually fit you comfortably?" Twilight stated with a small laugh. It was then I was caught by surprise by a male voice coming from another room above us.

"Hey Twilight, what the hay was that? Are you ok down there?" I heard the voice yell, half in surprise and half in terror. I never heard Twilight talk about romance at all, let alone the fact she had a boyfriend or husband.

"Twilight? Is that your... husband?" I asked genuinely. Her response was a bellowing fit of laughter that went on for a gut-busting thirty seconds. Tears of jubilation in her eyes she finally responded to my query.

"Oh Charlie... I'm sorry that was too much... That was just Spike. He is my personal assistant." She said in between gasps of residual laughter. "Spike! Get down here and meet our new guest!"

I heard the soft pitter-patter of footsteps leaving the room above us and then descending a flight of stairs. I scrambled to my feet and got ready to meet whoever the voice belonged to. The door opened, and to my surprise, the doorway was empty. My eyes were set at pony level, however, and I looked down and noticed a small reptile peeking his head in the door.

"This is Spike! Spike, meet Charlie. He is going to stay here with us while we figure out what's going on in the forest." Twilight said with a grin.

"Hey dude nice to meet you!...What is that thing? And what's up with his eyes? They look like mine." He whispered the last part to Twilight.

"Nice to meet you too Spike. I am a creature called a Human from a distant world called Earth. My eyes are like this because of a genetic mutation. What are you?" I recited, tired of having to explain them to every single creature I met.

"Oh, I'm a dragon. I'm still a baby by dragon standards, otherwise I'd be huge!" Said Spike enthusiastically.

A dragon? Here I was in a world inhabited by intelligent equines, and now dragons? I guess I shouldn't be surprised in this land of magic. But what was a fire breathing creature doing working in a library full of dusty flammable books? Better yet, a tree filled with flammable objects! My mind swam with questions, but I knew better than to question it. He probably gets enough of that as it is.

"Spike, I think we should let our guest get to sleep. We only just got back from Canterlot..." Twilight said.

"Alright. Nice meeting ya dude!" Spike said as he withdrew from my room.

"Goodnight you two." I said as Twilight departed leaving me and my new puppy alone with a broken bed and a dusty room.

***

Due to my soreness, I did not fall asleep easily that night. I let my new pet fall asleep at the foot of the bed, but I stayed up pacing for hours. My mind was abuzz with thoughts and questions and everything in between. My mind ranged to the strange magical anomaly to Luna, to my other six friends. Life here was more complicated than I had initially expected. That is why I was zoning out during our conversation the next day.

"...so that's what I think is going on. Any input Charlie?" Twilight finished, me not hearing the first part of her thought.

"Oh uh... sorry I didn't get much sleep last night. Could you repeat that?" I said with a cheesy apologetic smile. Twilight just sighed and rolled her eyes.

"I don't know what caused the rift, but I think that we can safely say it is dangerous to say the least. If any of us go through it, there may be a chance we couldn't get back here. That would be very bad news. To top it off, more and more things are popping up in the everfree, suggesting that it is growing. Any thoughts Charlie?"

"That makes sense. We should still go investigate." I said. There simply wasn't enough information to go on, and we needed to gather more intel.

"Ok everypony, lets move out!" Exclaimed a very trigger happy rainbow mare.

As we walked through Ponyville, I could feel equine eyes piercing me. It took great self control to not shout at them to mind their own business. Maybe someday I could walk around without making all the residents slack jaw. We continued through Ponyville and I saw some very peculiar buildings. There was a very french looking building that screamed Rarity, and a building that looked like a giant cupcake. I didn't even have to ask if that was the home of Pinkie Pie. We came to a cottage on the outskirts of town and I thought it would be the perfect place to live. I was very jealous of the Fluttershy that came bounding out to meet us.

Once we reached the Everfree forest, I stood in awe. It seemed so natural and primal compared to the rest of the world. It reminded me of... Earth. Which was a very bad thing. I began to wonder if it had always been this way.

"Hey Twilight... Has the Everfree always been this... ominous?" I queried to the purple unicorn.

"Well, it always freaked ponies out mostly because the clouds here move on their own. No matter how hard ponies try to colonize the Everfree, it seems nature always wins."

"Curious... I wonder if this place just has a natural connection to my world." I said as I mentally scanned the surrounding area. The whole place felt much more wild then it had before when I was living with Nightmare Moon. There were more active predators, who seemed agitated by something. I just had to get in there and investigate.

"Ok. Here's how this is going to work," I spoke up, deciding to take the leader role for this excursion, "I don't want anypony getting split up. We all stay in our group of seven, and if we get separated, don't move. I can feel the forest, and it is in a very agitated state right now. We wouldn't last a minute in there alone. Twilight and I will take the lead. Applejack and Rainbow Dash take the rear. Everypony else, stay in the middle and stick together. Let's move out!" I said, always wanting to say the last part. This felt more like a military mission rather than a simple investigation, but whatever would keep us all safe was the path I would take.

Once we entered the forest, it was a completely different story. It was dark. No natural, night time dark, but crushing and stifling dark. It was artificial darkness, caused by the thick weaving branches of the trees above, cutting off all sunlight. It was even more eerie than the Everfree Castle, and that place oozed creepy.

After walking in our tightly knit sphere for what seemed like hours, we came across a peculiar sight. It was a little girl. Not a filly, but a small human child. I told everybody to halt, and that I would handle it. A whole group of ponies might frighten her. I carefully and slowly approached her and got down on one knee.

"Hey there..." I said in my most soothing calm voice.

Apparently I wasn't soothing and calm enough, because she turned around and used her spinning momentum to punch me right in the face. I fell back onto my ass and she took off running. How stupid was this girl? Did she have any idea how easy it would be for her to get eaten out here?

"You guys, hurry! She is running!" I said as I took off after the girl. I was careful not to lose my friends behind me, but I kept up the pace enough to catch the girl as she tripped and twisted her ankle. She slipped on a mossy dead branch and I heard a snapping sound as she hit the ground and screamed out in pain and terror.

"Look, I know I am scary, but if you don't come with me, you will die." I said in a serious voice. I didn't want to scare her, but she needed to understand the gravity of the situation. I looked at her leg and saw the bone was sticking through the skin. Ouch. This would be painful, but it was the least I could do for a little girl. I reached out to her and carefully used my own energy to heal her wound. She winced as the bone found its way back inside her broken flesh and reattached as a whole. Her broken skin and veins stitched back together in a matter of seconds and she passed out at the sight. Unable to stay lucid for much longer, I collapsed. Shortly before I passed out from the pain, I reached out into the forest to regain my strength. I heard howling and snarling from the creatures around us as I siphoned their life to heal myself. That was close. If I passed out here, it would have been over.

"Get away from me you monster! I know who you are! I know what you've done!! You killed my daddy!" She screamed, suddenly awake, tears bellowing from her eyes.

"That's a pretty bad apology to somebody who just saved your life..." I said, disregarding her claims. Who was this girl? Obviously she lived somewhere near me if she knew who I was. Then it hit me like an avalanche rolling down a mountain. This was John's little girl. Maybe there was some shred of humanity left inside me when I hesitated to kill her. Regardless, here she was and I had to deal with it.

"Listen, we don't have time to talk here. Will you at least let me take you to safety?" I asked, great remorse growing in my heart. She was so small... she was just a child. I had almost killed her without even a thought back then. I was glad I had changed.

She responded with silence as I scooped her up in my arms. She closed her eyes, and I carried her back to the six elements.

"Change of plans. We have to get out of here. I'm not well enough prepared to have to defend the six of you plus this little girl." I said in a grave tone.

"I can defend myself thank you very much!" Came the reply from a sassy Rainbow Dash.

"This isn't the Everfree you know Rainbow. In case you hadn't noticed, this place is crawling with things that could swallow you in one bite. We travel as a group, or not at all." I responded. I didn't have time to deal with Dash properly, so I set off with the girl in my arms and six disappointed ponies following me. Well, five disappointed ponies. I know for certain that Fluttershy desperately wanted release from this augmented death-trap of a forest.

We made our way through the thick bushes and underbrush of the forest and made it back before nightfall. I had a bad feeling that place only gets worse at night. Turning my attention to the girl, I told her that she was safe now. She opened her eyes wide when she saw my pony companions.

"Rainbow Dash?" She suddenly said as she opened her eyes.

"How do you know me?!" Exclaimed the cyan pegasus mare.

This night was about to get a whole lot more interesting...

Authors Notes: Howdy ya'll. I'm just dropping by to inform you that I am working on another story. It will probably be shorter than this one. I got the idea from an experience I had a few days ago, and I'm rollin' with it. The story is called 'One Hard Trip' if you want to take a look. Now that I'm working on something else, my chapter updates may slow down a bit. Sorry about that!